Network Configurations

There are several ways that people might want to use Tahoe. We're not necessarily committed to satisfying all of these use cases -- these are just possibilities.

As these network configurations develop, the node roles section develops in complement.

name	number of nodes	administrative domains	node capacity	node availability	churn
friendnet	2-10	many domains, but all trusted	mixed	mixed	low
proprietary grid -- 1x upload	2-30	one domain	uniform	high	low
proprietary grid -- p2p upload	2-30 servers, up to 50,000 clients	one domain for servers, many for clients	uniform	high	low
hivecache	10-1000	one domain, but not as well controlled	somewhat uniform	high	low
Allmydata plus customers	10-10,000	many	mixed	mixed	medium
global grid	any	many	mixed	mixed	high

• friendnet: A group of friends want to share backup and files.
• proprietary grid -- 1x upload: A sysadmin, or Allmydata Inc. wants to backup data onto a set of servers. The data is uploaded to the servers over a streaming protocol such as HTTP (using the Web API).
• proprietary grid -- p2p upload: A sysadmin, or Allmydata Inc. wants to backup data onto a set of servers. The data is uploaded to the servers over the Tahoe distributed upload protocol.
• hivecache: A sysadmin wants to backup data onto hundreds of employee workstations.
• Allmydata plus customers: Allmydata, Inc. and its customers share a storage grid including the customer's computers.
• global grid: A large, diverse ecosystem of people and organizations who want a storage grid with extremely high reliability and availability.

Node Roles

Network configurations can usually be thought of in terms of a topology connecting particular node roles. These roles often fulfill the same abstraction across network configurations. By allowing specialized role configurations, a plethora of custom network configurations can be deployed without modifying the code.

Here are some archetypal roles:

• The Available Migrator consumes storage from a changing address.
  • Migration Pattern Availability - Availability is high, but address changes are frequent.
  • Examples: Laptops, mobile devices, poor DHCP configurations.
  • Should this role supply storage? If so, how does it affect average file availability? -reliability?

• The Ephemeral Consumer consumes storage, but lacks availability.
  • Poor availability - Availability is low, such as a node that is only up when consuming storage service.
  • Examples: Backup service customer.
  • Hints:
    • Set size limit config option to 0. (Is this a kludge currently? -Nejucomo)

• A Grid Storage Servant provides storage but does not consume it.
  • High Availability - An individual file's availability is largely dependent on average storage availability.
  • Remote Control - Typically a provider configures many nodes through a centralized manner for convenience.
  • Non Consumer - Specialized storage providers do not consume storage services.

• A Grid Manager does not provide storage services but controls storage servents.

Deployment

The Test Grid

... Put your experience with particular configurations here ...